Monday, June 26, 2017

M is for Monstrous Manual: Aboleth

One of the most appealing aspects of
Dungeons & Dragons has been the deep variety of monsters
that could be encountered by players. With a franchise that has
spanned over 40 years and 5-ish editions (stuff like various versions
of Basic D&D and even Pathfinder blur the lines) means
that a LOT of monsters have accrued, and where they come from is
often as wild as how they got there, and I really want to take some
time and delve into some of the more iconic, interesting, and
flat-out weird monsters populating D&D and look at how and why
they found their way in.

The question is, of course, where do
you start? I'll be using the 2nd Edition Monstrous
Manual (1993) for two reasons: 1) It is a beautifully laid out
bestiary with detailed entries for ecology and culture in addition to
stats that really helps give the monsters personality, and 2) AD&D
2e was the edition that I was most exposed to growing up and have the
most fondness for, so MUH SECOND EDITION works for me. Its just a
jumping off point, since I'll look at how they are in other editions.

Introductions out of the way, the
Aboleth is a fine place to begin. A 20-foot long fish-like creature
with blue-green skin with gray splotches, three eyes sitting on top
of each other, a rubbery, jawless mouth on the underside and four
10-foot long tentacles emerge from the body. Aquatic creatures that
live underground or in the deepest seas; they are highly intelligent,
ancient, and hate you.

On land they kind of flop around with
their tentacles, but in water they are nasty ambush predators. In
addition to dealing normal damage, being hit with a tentacle and
failing a saving throw starts the process of transforming the
victim's skin into a clear membrane that needs to be kept moist or
else it deals significantly more damage as the skin cracks and dries.
Worse, in water they generate a mucous cloud that surrounds them like
hagfish slime. Anyone failing to save vs poison inhales the cloud and
can breathe underwater but loses the ability to breathe air. Perhaps
even worse, they are powerful spellcasters, often luring adventurers
close to them with illusions and then attempting to mentally enslave
them (3 times per day) once they get within 30 feet. Its a nasty
1-2-3 combo, but reversible if the party is prepared properly. Oh,
and if psionic rules are in effect, they have some of that available
too.

They first appeared in the 1st
Edition adventure Dwellers of the Forbidden City in 1981,
written by David “Zeb” Cook. The adventure has the party fighting
their way through a steamy jungle and discovering a lost city,
underground tunnels, evil yuan-ti snake cults, and other Edgar Rice
Burroughs-style goodies (The twentieth Tarzan novel, published in
1938, is called Tarzan and the Forbidden City,
and the similarity is probably less than coincidental). The
aboleth in the caverns serves as a kind of miniboss for the cavern
section before the discovery of the Forbidden City itself.

Gary Gygax included the Aboleth in the
1e Monster Manual II in 1983, where its description was
largely the same. Both entries end with a tantalizing hint that
aboleth have vast underwater cities built by slave labor and housing
their vast stores of forbidden knowledge. This is a clear nod to the
city of R'lyeh from Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu (1928).
They're not lifted directly from the Mythos, but implication of the
style of encounters they should be is clear: Eldritch, ancient,
unknowable evil.

2nd Edition (Monstrous
Compendium Volume 2 in 1989 and
The Monstrous Manual)
expanded on their weirdness, making them hermaphroditic egg layers
who gain the full memories of their parent (singular) upon birth.
They can also eat intelligent life to gain more knowledge this way. A
Savant Aboleth variant that is more focused on spellcasting appeared
in Night Below: An Underdark Campaign and the Monstrous
Compendium Annual Two (both from
1995)

By third edition, they remained a
staple of the Monster Manual (2000, and the 2003 3.5 revision)
and received a lengthy entry in 2005's Lords of Madness: The Book
of Aberrations. There, all sorts
of physiological, anatomical, cultural and religious lore was
included, as well as a small section that flat-out tells DMs that
they are deliberately Lovecraftian, specifically citing At
the Mountains of Madness (1936)
and The Dreams in the Witch House (1933)
as thematic inspirations.

Lords of Madness
also includes a flying aboleth variant called the uobilyth, which
lives in clouds and would be hilariously terrifying if they weren't
so reclusive.

Aboleths
(the plural -s was added in 3rd
Edition) continue in the 4th
Edition Monster Manual
(2008), the Pathfinder Bestiary
(2009), and the 5th
Edition Monster Manual
(2014). In all of these, the aboleth remains largely the same with
superficial differences, like gaining teeth along the way. Though
Pathfinder plays up the Lovecraftian themes quite a bit more.